


Respite

by mistressminako



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-24
Updated: 2020-11-24
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:28:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27692780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mistressminako/pseuds/mistressminako
Summary: Chiss are communal sleepers, and Grand Admiral Thrawn is a long way from home.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 16





	Respite

**Author's Note:**

> This is based off a piece by [BadKoba](https://twitter.com/badbadkoba/status/1303409437449883654?s=20)

Their consult spilled into the small hours of ship’s night. 

Sloane broke first. Eyes sliding closed as the Grand Admiral’s voice lured her to sleep. She had no idea how long he droned on about the Issal teaset which somehow informed his proposed battle array - but knowing him, his speech was lengthy and detailed. 

“Grand Admiral Sloane?” Thrawn’s voice was soft, almost delicate. A heavy hand rested on her shoulder, icy fingers curled over her golden epaulet. 

She did not startle. She was hardly a green officer. She blinked a few times to clear her blurred vision. The room had gone dark, devoid of Thrawn’s usual array of art holos. 

“Present,” she asserted, falling back on Academy reflexes. She locked eyes with Thrawn’s alien gaze, noting the pink band of his iris. Pupils blown wide. He was as exhausted as she was. 

“Ah.” Was all he managed in response. He stepped back to give her space. “Perhaps we should call it a night.”

“Agreed.” Sloane stretched, cracking her shoulders before placing chin in hand and cracking her sore neck. Thrawn held his ground, standing still as a statue as those alien eyes tracked down his datapad. 

The question that slipped past his lips was so soft, she almost missed it. “May I sleep with you?”

Of course. It was her ship. She had the power here. Thrawn spent a majority of his time in Wild Space and beyond. A lonely patrol, punctuated with intense but brief periods of combat. A difficult command for a man who was eternally traversing the tightrope between two nations. 

It wore on him. She knew it did. They operated for the greater good. A good that kept Thrawn separated from his own kind. Chiss, who protected each other fiercely. Even in their most vulnerable state. Chiss were communal sleepers, he had explained, following the first time he had made this request of her. He wasn’t asking for physical intimacy. Merely the comfort of another near him as he slept. 

“As you wish, Grand Admiral,” she rumbled, rising from her chair.

A half hour later, she was stripped to a singlet and the white leggings she wore under her uniform pants. Thrawn lay beside her, shirtless and down to his uniform pants. Their boots were left by the door and both removed their socks to silently luxuriate in her thick carpeting. 

She studied Thrawn, as she always did. The myriad of scars and half-credit size blaster burns telling more about his many years of service than any medal or rank plaque could ever hope to. It was no secret she admired his brilliant tactical mind and his subtle demeanor which captured the hearts of his crew. He was a siren. Brilliant and vicious if an errant soul strayed too close. 

He was curled up next to her as her eyes drifted over daily reports. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. She sighed, feeling the ache of her eyes as she blinked a bit of moisture over them. The fleet was handled. She’d best settle down and catch a few hours rest. 

Thrawn stirred beside her. She retreated from the wall sconce she’d just leaned over to extinguish. A puff of breath brushed past her arm. Thrawn’s eyes were screwed shut. A line valleying the divide between his prominent brows. He was muttering in one of the many trade languages he knew that she did not. Or, perhaps. He was speaking in his native tongue. In any case, Thrawn appeared distressed. Long fingers gripping the edge of the single pillow under his head. 

She didn’t know why she did it. Maybe she’d seen enough nightmares during the nights she’d looked after Armitage. In a still youthful corner of her mind, perhaps she wanted to bring comfort to another, instead of the abject misery so much of her life had been dedicated to. 

Thrawn’s hair was soft under her fingers. It still held traces of his usual pomade, but he had rinsed and combed his hair before bed in an effort not to damage her silk sheets. The silken strands of his thick hair slid through her fingers. His muttering quieted. Alien features relaxed. The nightmare passed. 

She continued petting him for a few moments before her eyelids grew too heavy to ignore. She switched off the light and settled down. Perhaps a bit too close to her fellow Grand Admiral according to regs and common sense. But it was her ship, and if she wanted to savor the safety and presence of another body resting beside, who was going to stop her?


End file.
